Cameron aide: Parking fees will destroy West End firms

The Prime Minister's business adviser Lord Young of Graffham today joins the campaign against Westminster council's parking charges, saying they will "destroy" firms in the West End.

Speaking to the Evening Standard he said the council was "biting the hand" of struggling business ratepayers and predicted a backlash among Londoners unless its leader Colin Barrow halts it.

"If this chap wants to get re-elected he had better start thinking again," said the peer. "It will be extremely unpopular. I don't know anyone who thinks it is a good idea."

Recalling the late former leader of Westminster, Sir Simon Milton, he added. "Simon Milton wouldn't do this in a million years. It's going to destroy a lot of the West End - entertainment, restaurants, everything."

The lifelong Conservative, a former Institute of Directors president, has even signed a protest petition launched by the Labour group at Westminster.

Lord Young, 79, has been a Cabinet minister, a major industrialist and a senior policy adviser to two prime ministers. Baroness Thatcher called him her favourite minister. David Cameron recently reappointed him to Downing Street as an adviser on cutting business regulation.

As the borough's cabinet member for parking and transportation, he is proposing to charge up to £4.80 an hour in the West End up to midnight on weekdays and on Sundays from January, abolishing free parking on single yellow lines and parking bays after 6.30pm in the week and between 1pm and 6pm on Sundays. Several other senior advisers to Mr Cameron are also known to be aghast at the proposals.

Lord Young said: "I cannot understand the logic of it. It's biting the hand that feeds it because the West End pays Westminster council a great deal of money.

"The whole thing about the West End is that in the evenings and at weekends people can come up there and leave the car, go to the theatre, go to a restaurant. Well, if they can't do that then what's the point?" He said feedback from business showed that many were struggling against a loss of confidence and poor sales in some sectors.

"This would just kill the whole thing. I am sure people still haven't yet paid attention to what is coming but when they do you can see there will be a great protest."

More than 1,000 people have signed the petition online.

Council leader Mr Barrow said: "These controls will be introduced on an experimental basis, allowing us to assess their impact during the eighteen month experimental period, and adjust the controls accordingly.

"We appreciate that this is an unpopular decision in some quarters. We are charging at times when parking was previously free, but Westminster wants streets that are clean, safe and vibrant.

"We have a duty to manage the roads effectively and this is the first major review and change in policy that we have undertaken in ten years."